How important is the bonus for tournament players?

Everybody looks out for the bonus when they sign up with a new poker site, but is it really that important for everybody?

The short answer is, no it is not. Why? Well, if you are a cash game player, then releasing the initial bonus certainly puts additional money in your account. How much this is worth to you is mainly determined by the levels you play. If you play one microlevel table (say 2ct/5ct NL),, then you are not generating a lot of rake, which means that the bonus will be released very slowly, and thus the bonus is not of too much importance to you.

Same goes for tournament players. You can only play so many tournaments per day or week, and the release of the bonus is determined by the "juice" added to the tournament buy-in. Thus, tournament players do not generate that much juice and most of the time, they will only release small chunks of the bonus. That said, instead of looking for great poker bonus offers, tournament players should base their choice of poker room on other criteria, such as choice of tournaments, typical buy-in sizes etc.

If you like to buy in to smaller tournaments with medium large player fields, then you will find that Titan Poker is a great choice. They have a lot of tournaments in the $5-50 buy-in range. Check it out here.

What about "side games"?

If you like to venture into casino games, sports betting or other card games such as Blackjack, the situation is a different one altogether. Most poker rooms have thos options on offer, and money invested into sports bets or casino games will count towards the bonus release. If you play those games frequently, you will release your bonus faster, but remember that those games are being played against the house, and may deplete your bankroll much quicker than a bad run of cards in poker.